Xiang Cao Mei Ren: A heavy watch from 1933

Is this for you?

If you want a light, breezy night at the movies, look elsewhere. Xiang Cao Mei Ren is a punch to the gut that doesn't let up. It’s for the folks who like their history raw and don't mind a film that feels like it’s been through a blender, which, given the heavy censorship it faced in 1933, it literally has.

The story follows Farmer Wang and his kin as they trade rural poverty for urban survival in a Shanghai tobacco factory. It’s the kind of setup where you know from the first frame that nothing good is coming their way.

Watching the factory slowly die out because of foreign competition is painful. The film captures that specific, suffocating feeling of people being ground down by things they can’t control. You can see the exhaustion on the actors' faces—it’s not even acting at that point.

There is a moment where Wang finds out what his daughter has been doing to keep them fed, and the way he just... snaps? It’s brutal. He throws his own family out. It’s not a graceful moment. It’s ugly and impulsive and feels entirely real.

I couldn't help but think about how these characters would fit into something like Irrende Seelen. They are all just drifting souls trapped in systems that don't care if they sink or swim.

• The pacing is frantic, probably because so much of the original film was hacked away by censors.
• The mall scene where Wang loses it over the cigarette display? It’s weirdly cathartic.
• The lighting in the factory scenes is so grimy you can practically smell the stale air.

It’s a bit of a mess, technically speaking. You can tell where the cuts were made. It jumps, it skips, and sometimes you’re left wondering how they got from the factory floor to the street so fast. But honestly? The gaps almost make it scarier.

It’s not a perfect movie. It’s a fragment of a nightmare. If you’re into cinema history that actually bites, it’s worth the trouble to find. Just don't expect to leave feeling good about the state of the world. 🚬